


Very exclusive clubs

by hwbswd



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Gen, neither plot nor porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23351755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hwbswd/pseuds/hwbswd
Summary: Ollie belongs to several clubs. For instance:-The Everyone Else Needs to Calm the Fuck Down Club (membership Ollie and Schneider),-The Crossword Club (membership ditto),-The Back Riser Club (same as above, plus Flake),-The Babysitters Club (membership three),-The Society for Throwing These Two Assholes in a Lake (membership four).
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35





	1. Membership Two

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a story, it has no plot of any kind. These little vignettes just sometimes occur to me, and then I write them down. I might use some of them later in other stories, don't be too disappointed if they get recycled :) I'm literally standing in the kitchen frying an onion while I post this, that's how serious it is.
> 
> I wasn't originally planning to post these at all, but Lucifer on a lilypad the world has had a DAY today and I figured maybe someone else could enjoy Story Time with Ollie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Everyone Else Needs to Calm the Fuck Down Club and The Crossword Club

Schneider and I are members of a very exclusive club. Very posh. It’s had several names over the years, the most enduring being **the Everyone Else Needs to Calm the Fuck Down Club**. It has a joint presidency, no secretary, and one treasurer, because Schneider still owes me E20 from last month. 

Other clubs of which I am a dues-paying member include: **The Crossword Club** \- same membership as above. 

About the Crossword Club - It began as regular meetings of the EENtCtFDC, but then we started getting more enthusiastic about the crosswords. Partly because Richard and Paul were at each others’ throats all the time then, and a couple hours of conflict is about our limit. And partly because crossword puzzles are a lot more fun when you get better at them, which we did. We were spending a lot of time in each others’ rooms with the doors closed. I expected more teasing than we were getting, actually. 

Until once we were staying in an unfamiliar house and Paul opened my door instead of the bathroom, which was understandable as they were right next to each other. He looked horribly embarrassed for a second, then looked at us again, and then shouted over his shoulder, “Guys, they really are doing the crossword!” 

And then started laughing. And the others all had to come look. They ended up in a pile on my floor, laughing like they were going to die. Till had to hide his face in Flake’s neck, and Richard flopped backwards across Till’s lap, and Paul collapsed on top of Richard’s chest sideways, all of them howling. They would start to wind down, and then look over at me and Schneider, and we would look back at them bemusedly from our little table, and they’d be off again. Till and Flake had one arm each wrapped around each other, Richard and Paul were hugging each other, Flake had a hand in Richard’s hair, and Till had his free hand on Paul’s back. 

Finally they started breathing again, and Till poked Paul and Richard, and said, “Off, before you break my knees more.” They disentangled, grinning and wiping their eyes, and then started advancing on me and Schneider. “C’mere.” They dragged us up into the mob. From somewhere in the middle of it Schneider said, “Did you all really just need hugs? Next time could we skip the arguing, and go straight to that?” It turned out to work, too. It’s not effective if anyone is really upset, but for day to day friction, sometimes we can skip the arguments. 

The Crossword Club - membership six. But only if it means hugs. If it’s really the crossword, membership two. The others are awful at crosswords.


	2. Membership Three, Four, One, and Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Back Riser Club, plus a very short story told in club names.

**The Back Riser Club** \- same as above, plus Flake.  
I had to talk Schneider into letting Flake join us. If complaining was a sport, Flake could go professional. I used to find it stressful until I realized that he’s perfectly happy most of the time that he’s moaning. I also noticed that he only bitches about trivial things. Sure, he got years of mileage about Paul leaving their kitchen cupboards open. But he never gossips, or spreads conflict. It’s never about anything serious, he deals with actual issues in perfectly normal ways. Now I think it’s relaxing. If he gets going on something he can be entertaining for hours, which is a great asset on a tour bus. 

**The How Much Arguing Can Two Guitarists Even Manage, Honestly, Club** \- Membership four,  


**The Association for Making These Idiots Eat Something Because It Will Make Them Less Grumpy** \- us two, plus Till,  


**The Organization for Making Some Damn Toast Already** \- Membership one, Schneider burned the toast and Till was trying to run interference,  


**Our Only Defense Against Frau Schneider’s Wrath is Obedience Club** \- Membership five. We hadn’t yet been formally introduced to Frau Scheider then, but she was there all along.


	3. Membership six, and four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Organization for Packing Till’s Tissues and the Society for Throwing These Two Assholes in a Lake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like one, maybe two little chapters after this, I'm just going to throw them out there as soon as I've had a quick pass at editing them. The quality does not improve, I warn you. 
> 
> Hang in there, duckies.

**The Organization for Packing Till’s Tissues** \- Membership six. Ongoing.

Till cries when he’s completely worn out. It’s kind of funny on overnight flights, if he doesn’t get any sleep he’ll sniffle all through customs. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s upset, but if he’s emotionally spent it’s usually a relief to everyone once he starts, since it means he’s given up on whatever he was worked up about. It used to embarrass the hell out of him, but now he’ll just wipe his eyes on whatever is handy and carry on. My shoulder is a particularly convenient height. We’ll be in some airport and he’ll walk up to me, smear his face on my shirt, and wander off.

* * *

Till wants approval. Sure, so does everyone, but he runs closer to the red than most.

Richard wants. Approval, affection, love, fame, sex, money, drugs. You name it, he wants it. You don’t name it, he still probably wants it. It doesn’t even have a name, that doesn’t stop him. Sometimes he runs out of things to want, and just wants. He and Till tend to feed back on each other, and usually it’s helpful, they can fulfill some of what each other needs. Every once in a while, though, they become an infinite laser of need, and that’s rough.

One of those occasions led to the first and only meeting of **the Society for Throwing These Two Assholes in a Lake** (SfTTTAiaL), membership four. We really did it, too. The rest of us were at our wits’ end, it was the last thing we were going to try before sending everyone home for a couple months, which would have messed up the recording schedule. We were hoping it would break them out of their pattern, and we had a plan. We were also all pretty irked.  
Paul drove Till and Schneider drove the rest of us, and when we got to the nearest dock we dragged them out. It was October, so not completely freezing but pretty unpleasant, and we just bodily shoved them in. They’d thought we were kidding until they hit the water. We could never have pulled it off if they were expecting it.

When they’d finished spluttering and cussing, they were mad at us and laid off each other at long last. Flake and I fished Till out while Schneider and Paul got Richard. Till stripped off his wet clothes on the dock, and griped about his wallet, which was soaked, and his shoes, until he started shivering. Schneider brought blankets and wrapped one around each. I told you this was entirely premeditated.

I drove Till’s car on the way back, while in the back seat Till cried on Flake in exhaustion. When Till’s not being pissy Flake has a practically infinite tolerance for him. He rocked him and crooned to him until we were back.

We hoped he was all teary because he was finally tired of being a twit.

Paul said that the whole drive back Richard had been cussing himself out. About how he was so stupid, and how could he have said those terrible things to Till.

Inside, Till started to say, “Richard, please forgive -”

And at the same time Richard said, “Till, I’m sorry, I -”

This led to a heartfelt but very awkward hug, where they tried to not expose themselves outside their blankets. So that was all right. We gave them tea and whiskey on the couch and they finally fell asleep in front of some romcom. Then they got weeks of commiseration about how their stupid bandmates actually tossed them in a lake.


	4. The Babysitters Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Membership three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure the band kids are important, but I'm a little squeamish about writing specifically about them. Hope this splits the difference.

We unironically called it that for a long time, until Richard got a wicked gleam once and told us about the American book series. Then Flake had a huff about the paucity of American culture, and all was well. 

It’s all grandchildren now, but our own kids were spread out enough in age that there’s always been one or two little ones. In this band we’ve got two kinds of fathers: those who want to dote on other peoples’ babies, and those who don’t, thanks all the same. Three of each. I would never have expected to be in the first group, but maybe it’s a club you have to buy into by having your own children. Though Richard was a member well before he had kids, so I don’t know. 

According to Paul, Flake was mostly just terrified of Emil as a baby, so he’s like me in that way. Clearly he got over it, God knows he’s had enough of his own. Richard calls them Flake’s Flock, in English, which makes Flake roll his eyes and look mushy at the same time. In some corner of his soul Richard is a little jealous, in another life he might have had a sprawling flock of his own. 

Put an infant in the same room as those two, though, and one or the other will waltz off with them in minutes. Flake’s even a surprisingly good sport about diapers. 

Till thinks toddlers are tolerable, he says he likes how they destroy and reconfigure language. He also lets them climb him. 

Schneider still is a bit intimidated by tiny people. He had his kids late, so he had a lot of practice with having nothing to do with them. He did let the swarm do his hair when it was long, at least two of the girls and one of the boys learned how to braid on his head. 

Paul doesn’t mind kids, but he doesn’t seek them out. Once they’re school-aged they discover that he’ll play hopscotch or tag or board games or whatever for hours, but he never lets them win. They have to beat him for real. It’s almost a rite of passage around here. 

You’ve not really lived until you’ve heard Richard and Flake trying to put down a fussy baby. They sing the most beautiful harmonies, Richard in his sleek voice and Flake in his oddly crisp one. They’ll do lullabies reluctantly but they prefer the bawdiest drinking songs. It doesn’t usually work, of course, they crack each other up too much. And they each want to be the one holding the baby, so they get passed back and forth a lot. So then I have to take over. 

Babies have an intrinsic bias against men with beards. However, if you’re still and calm and predictable, they move past their mistrust. I don’t sing lullabies or tavern songs, I don’t have much of a singing voice anyway. But I have a very special sort of swinging rocking movement that sends them right off. I like how heavy they are, how even when they’re tiny holding one makes your arm ache after a while. 


End file.
